


The Relative Value of Things

by rageprufrock



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-09
Updated: 2010-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-06 01:10:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rageprufrock/pseuds/rageprufrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Touya Akira isn't the only person who wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shindou Was Probably Too Young to Drink, Anyway

Ogata has an appreciation for valuable things, beautiful and fascinating things. Money is of no real object, though through the years he has realized that having it makes it easier to indulge his other interests.

Shindou Hikaru is turning eighteen today and Ogata is watching him from low-lidded eyes, considering and surprised. The last time he looked at the boy--really looked at him--that was exactly what Shindou Hikaru was, a child, a brilliant, shining one, befitting of his name, but no more, no less. But Ogata has always sensed the extraordinary in him, and now, it has smoothed itself over Shindou's sun-golden skin, the round fullness of his surprising mouth, the curve of his eyes.

And Akira is, as usual, arm's length away, a slightly puckered expression on his face that might pass for irritation if Ogata hadn't known Akira since he was a very young boy. Touya is happy and too proud to show it.

Ogata feels a smile on his mouth, a small, bass thing, and he slides a finger across his lower lip to feel it, feels his skin against the inside of his clothes, something warming and curling in the lower parts of his stomach.

He's watched Shindou and Touya chase one another, grow up at each others' sides, push and pull and circle like fierce animals over the grace of a Go board, and he wonders if perhaps the distance is what gives him enough perspective to see the truth.

It is a waste, he thinks, in one of those detached, abstracted ways, that Shindou and Touya are so busy being obsessed with one another that they'll never pause long enough to see that there's more to it that competition, that probably not everybody is driven to masturbating in the Go Institute bathrooms after tournament games, after the last moves and their envelopes have been sealed.

But Ogata's no matchmaker and their potentials are all their own--like money, it's of no consequence.

Ogata's smile darkens, though, and he puts out the cigarette he's been nursing. No object, he knows, but useful, and he stands up and walks across the room.

*

Shindou isn't obvious, not the way that Akira's been obvious since the day he was born. But Ogata sees Shindou enough to know that even though Shindou Hikaru's most involved relationship is with his Go board, when he looks too long, it's never at women with all their soft, submitting curves.

And also unlike Touya, Shindou is not afraid.

So Ogata says, "Congratulations, Shindou-kun, and happy birthday."

And Shindou says, with a slight and awkward pause, like he's learning the new parameters of the way that Ogata has formed his syllables, smoother like a drag of sickly sweet opium on the pink flesh of his tongue, "Thanks...Ogata-sensei."

Ogata cocks his head to the left, and says, "Let me buy you a drink. To celebrate."

As they're leaving, Ogata thinks again of what a terrible shame it is about Touya, but Ogata sees, as he opens the door of his car, the way that Touya is standing near the doorway of the Go Salon with his hand fisted against the wall, unmoving and frowns. Ogata has no patience for cowards, so he stares at Akira's dark, dark eyes and lights another cigarette, slipping into the car without apology and driving away with a shriek.

*

Ogata doesn't think about the relatively scandalous difference in their ages until Shindou finally stops trying to vibrate out of his skin, makes a decision, and presses his mouth awkwardly against Ogata's, with the eager inexperience of the shining boy he still is, somewhere inside.

Ogata bites back the laugh rumbling up through him, because he's always encouraged enthusiasm, and slows Shindou with a large palm on both Shindou's flushed cheeks, feeling the cool skin of his hands against the hot flesh of Shindou's face and wonders how it will feel--when his hands are lower, sliding, smoothing over Shindou's curved back, his ass, the backs of his thighs--and cannot help but to smile and bite Shindou's mouth.

They are in the parking lot of the bar that Ogata had driven them to, parked into a disreputable corner where Ogata can see a dumpster out of the driver's side seat, but Ogata's getting this strange feeling that they're not going to make it inside or outside or even down the street around the corner where Ogata has a perfectly serviceable apartment with a very large bed.

Ogata's almost forgotten what it's like to be that young, but the way Shindou's mouth is hot and slick with spit and his mouth feels bruised from full-contact kissing is rapidly reminding him, and he's jerking up Shindou's t-shirt, sliding his hands over Shindou's ribs, feeling the flutter of muscle under the pads of his fingers, the pebbled skin on his nipples, the slender curve of his side.

Shindou's mouth tastes like a peach, ripe and overflowing and Ogata is ravenous, suddenly unsatisfied with playing a willing participant and shoving hard, slamming Shindou against the passenger seat door with a rough thud breaking their kiss to suck on Shindou's neck, his collarbone, the exposed curve of his shoulder.

Shindou is making noises, short, pleading gasps, and his fingers are jerking at the shirt on Ogata's back, tugging at his suit jacket, desperate to feel skin.

But Ogata's feeling indulgent, selfish, dirty, so what he does instead of shucking out of his suit is slick his palms down the skin of Shindou's stomach, unbuttoning Shindou's dark jeans and slipping his calloused fingertips underneath the waistband of Shindou's boxers, feeling the smooth bones of his hips.

Shindou says something that starts out as "Wait" but turns into "Ohfuck" when Ogata curls his hand around his cock, feels his hands in the wiry curls around Shindou's dick and licks a long stripe up Shindou's neck, feeling the desperate, panting bob of Shindou's Adam's apple.

"Yes, Shindou-kun?" Ogata murmurs into Shindou's neck, the undercurve of his jaw, grinding his own erection into Shindou's leg through their pants, slow and patient. Ogata feels like a collector, inspecting his newest acquisition, and he is pleased by the deep, attractive flush of Shindou's skin, the rapid rise and fall of his chest.

"Nothing, don't stop," Shindou says very quickly, and arches up into Ogata's touch, head banging against the glass and fingers digging into Ogata's shoulders. "Ohfuck," he says again, just as Ogata slips his left hand down to his own pants, frees his cock.

And then it's as easy as star, tengen, block to pull his hands out of Shindou's pants and put them on his hips, jerk the boy down until he is dazed and red and gasping, laying flat on his back along the front seats, legs splayed awkwardly over Ogata's bent knees and his waist against the stick shift.

All of this is probably going to leave a lot of embarrassing bruises and aches in the morning, but at the moment Ogata's far more interested in seeing how brave Shindou's feeling tonight, so he smiles and leans down over the boy, pressing their mouths together again, and he is gratified to find Shindou eager and pushy and hot, pulling Ogata's shirt out of his pants and touching skin, jerking his hips up so that the heads of their cocks touch, just barely, enough to make both of them hiss.

It's the bastard inside Ogata that makes him say, "We can stop anytime you want, Shindou-kun."

Shindou manages to bat at him ineffectually for all of three seconds before he growls, fists Ogata's cock with surprising skill and says, "You're such a bastard."

Ogata manages not to make any particularly embarrassing noises, but he does hitch up Shindou's legs and grind their cocks together, faces close enough so that he can see the sweat beading on Shindou's upper lip, a perfect, angelic bow curve.

"So you're okay with this," Ogata manages between huffs, hips driving against Shindou's, the edge of his zipper biting his skin, the wear of denim on the side of his cock and the friction is so unsteady and imperfect that he cannot help but to pin down Shindou's distracting arms and just shove against him, impatient.

"I think I'll be ok--" Shindou says, voice breaking on a gasp "--ay." He yells something and wraps his left leg over Ogata's hip and for one second this whole awkward, sluttish thing is so exquisite that Ogata thinks he's in love.

Shindou comes first, with a breathless moan, splattering Ogata's expensive shirt, thumping against the car door, and thrusting against Ogata so hard that Ogata comes--at which point Ogata has a passing, brief thought that they've got to be killing the car's suspension--before he shoots all over Shindou's stomach, on the pushed-up cloth of Shindou's t-shirt.

It takes them about three minutes before they disentangle themselves and shove around until they're sitting in their respective seats again. Shindou is rubbing uselessly at the stains on his obnoxious yellow t-shirt, and Ogata wants to say, "Good riddance," but figures, you know, it's Shindou's first time and special and all, so he won't wreck it.

A couple of minutes later, Shindou rolls his eyes and says, "You can cut it out. I'm not going to make you marry me or anything. Just put the damn car in drive."

Ogata cocks one eyebrow and pulls on his seatbelt.

They're in the winding, hilly roads of Shindou's neighborhood the next time Shindou talks, and then, it's to say in a surprisingly old voice, "We shouldn't have done that."

Should is very low on Ogata's list of reasoning abilities, but it bothers him that it's bothering Shindou, enough so that he says, "Sorry."

Shindou shrugs, and looks out the window, saying, "Not really. You're not the one who should be sorry."

Ogata laughs and makes a left turn, and Shindou's house looms imminent. "You were pretty insistent, Shindou-kun. I'll have bruises for weeks."

This makes Shindou smile, but it is small and tight, and when they pull up to the house Shindou says, looking at his lap, "The thing is, I'm not stupid, Touya's only fearless when he's playing Go." And when Shindou looks up at Ogata it's with a vague, resigned smile on his face. He says, "Anyway, thanks. Don't, you know, cry yourself to sleep over it or anything."

Ogata's never been thanked for fucking anybody in the front seat of his car before, he's not sure how he feels about it. But he gets it together enough to say, "Anytime," and not, "I'm sorry Touya's too afraid to be in love with you."

And Shindou's smile at this is as surprising as his Go, as shining as the sun, as he gets out of the car, winks, and says, "I'll hold you to that."


	2. Game

Ogata admires Shindou, he really does, the boy's tenacity and unwillingness to give up, his obvious genius at Go, the amount of sheer effort and love he puts into his game--and also, and most importantly at the current moment, the way his ass is tight and hot and sweet around Ogata's cock.

In theory this whole thing is really obscene and Ogata should be feeling absolutely terrible that he and Shindou are having sex in his car (again) and probably worse that he made the effort since the last thing that shouldn't have happened to put lube and condoms in the glove compartment.

In practice, Shindou has his white, smooth thighs on either side of Ogata's hips and he's biting his lower lip, all swollen and bruised up from the way Ogata slammed Shindou into a wall and made their mouths fuck. In practice, Shindou has his large, brown-from-sun hands splayed over Ogata's stomach for balance, his cock red and half-mast, dripping onto the trail of hair leading to Ogata's cock, which is currently balls-deep in Shindou's hot, hot ass.

To be totally honest, Ogata isn't sure how it happened this time around. It's not that he and Shindou haven't been fooling around since Shindou's birthday the other week, but at some point they went from handjobs in the parking lot near the Go Institute to this alley behind the bar where Shindou was the best money Ogata never spent on drinking and full anal sex.

Ogata's pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that Shindou's eighteen, so sexy and eager and Ogata's a little bit of a slut.

"Are you okay?" Ogata asks, because as much as he's seriously debating seriously crippling himself in an effort to flip them over so he can have Shindou on his back, to throw the boy's legs over his shoulders and just fuck him blind, he's almost more surprised than turned on.

Shindou opens his eyes, and stares down the length of his body, slender and lithe and--ohfuck, Ogata thinks, feeling his cock jerk--looks at Ogata with half-lidded eyes, mouth dropping open, enough so that Ogata can see the slick of moisture on his pink, moving tongue.

Shindou's nails dig into Ogata's shirt, where they're clutching at the buttoned front, and shifts his hips experimentally, just enough to make the head of his cock bob a little, jerking in time to Ogata's hips snapping, against his will, and he feels like a little bit of a shit immediately when Shindou hisses tightly through clenched teeth.

"Fuck," Ogata mutters, wondering if somebody can actually die from this sort of thing.

Shindou shakes his head, languid and possessed, dewy all of a sudden, sweat sheening his exposed chest, bared through his unbuttoned shirt, golden skin along his abdomen melting into the curve of his leg, where his thigh met his hips and Ogata slides his hands up Shindou's calves, up his thighs, around the back, to cup his hands around Shindou's ass cheeks and squeeze gently. He's going for soothing, but Shindou says, "Fuck--don't move."

Ogata's very good at listening to directions--at least in bed, and when they suit him--so he doesn't, but that doesn't stop Shindou's eyes from flickering, once, twice, and his teeth to bite down along his lower lip again before--

Before he pushes down on Ogata's stomach and flexes his thighs, lifting himself up, pushing down on his knees so that Ogata feels the front seat sink down around him, so that Ogata feels his slicked-cock pull out, and then--"Ohfuck!" Shindou cries, hoarse--Shindou drops back down with a high-pitched whimper.

And then he does it again.

And Ogata watches in amazed shock with what few parts of his brain haven't short-circuited in an effort to push as much blood to his dick as possible as Shindou leans over, as his spine curves and his mouth drops open, and his brows furrow in concentration as he hits a rhythm, hair in his hooded eyes, which glow fascinated and possessing. Shindou is as astounded and turned on by this as Ogata, and that is unbearably hot, Ogata realizes.

Shindou shoves down again, a little braver than before and Ogata bites the inside of his mouth as hard as possible not to thrust up into Shindou's body. Their faces are so close that they could kiss, but when Shindou's wet, bruised mouth brushes against Ogata's again it's to say in a broken, overwhelmed voice, "Fuck me. Do it."

Ogata remembers closing his large hands around Shindou's slim hips, nails digging into the flesh of Shindou's ass and just pulling, knees locking and throwing his head back as he jerks Shindou down onto his cock as hard as possible. And when he looks up again, hips slamming up, Shindou has straightened up again, leaning back, his spine in a near impossible curve, mouth open, shoving himself down to meet each of Ogata's thrusts, his cock bobbing and dripping, pre-come making it glisten in the low light of the alleyway, in the car.

Somebody is clearly going to get a head injury here, from the way that Shindou's head is making contact with the glass, thumping against the window, and from how Ogata keeps banging into the car door, but Ogata can't get enough blood flow going upward from his dick to form a coherent concern. So he slides one hand back to where he can feel the slick base of his cock stretching Shindou open, obscene and filthy and so hot that when he runs his finger to the place where flesh meets flesh and feels it wet from lube and pre-come and sweat it's all he can do to moan in one gasping breath.

This is the point where Shindou makes a desperate noise, and closes his right hand around his cock, fisting it viciously, jerking at it hard and pushing himself down harder and harder until Ogata knows that his hips are breaking under the strain and keeps pushing up to meet him anyway.

It's going to end any minute now, so Ogata thinks, what the hell, and the finger tracing the place where his cock is shoving into Shindou's ass slips under the curves of flesh until the blunt fingertip slips in along with his cock in an erratic jerk and that's when he hears Shindou yelling, "Oh, God!" and feels himself coming so hard that he bites his lip and tastes blood even as he's grinding into Shindou so hard that they'll both hurt like a motherfucker tomorrow.

At some point, when lucidity sets in, Ogata manages to breathe enough to clear his vision and realize that Shindou is flopped on his chest, and that his cock's half slipped out of Shindou's ass. They're sweaty and bruised and sticky and Ogata's bleeding a little and the car's upholstery is never going to be the same.

He blinks, hard, and strokes Shindou's back until the boy says, "Okay--okay, I'm moving, I'm moving."

They hurt themselves some more rearranging themselves and pulling on clothes and trying to figure out if come stains come out of leather and Ogata earns a less-than-friendly punch in the gut when his eyes get huge and yells for Shindou to put some tissue under himself before he sits down.

By the time that everything is buttoned and tucked and they're more or less decent, Shindou is scowling and shifting around in his seat, muttering darkly under his breath every few changes in position, ignoring the way Ogata is clearly literally biting his tongue not to say anything that'll have Shindou punching him in the face while Ogata's driving and get them both killed.

It probably says bad things about this whole relationship that the first words they say afterward are:

"Don't turn here, this street's one-way after six," Shindou points out as Ogata puts on his blinker.

And, "I forgot about that," when Ogata turns off the blinker and merges into the next lane over.

They're looping the long way around when Shindou's cell rings, and Ogata watches as Shindou digs around his jeans and finally answers it on the fourth ring.

"Hello?" Shindou says, and then his eyes get wide. "Fuck--is it that late?" He glances at Ogata's dashboard and winces, says, "Sorry, sorry, no, no, we--I'm real close. I'll be there in five, okay? Sorry," and hangs up.

He hangs up and grins at Ogata apologetically, saying, "Hey, sorry--can you drop me off at the Go Salon? That took longer than expected."

Ogata is torn between insult and pride. He settles for driving toward the Go Salon.

When they pull up to the building where he can see the Touya Go Salon sign lit on the third floor, Shindou hesitates as he's unbuckling his seatbelt and catches Ogata's eyes for a moment before he says, "Actually--do you want to come up?"

Ogata almost puts the car into reverse he's so shocked. He's proud that the only visible sign is his raised eyebrows, but Shindou grins smugly at him anyway, saying, "What, you thought you were my dirty little secret?"

"You did change to the singular "I" on the phone just a moment ago," Ogata points out.

This can't possibly be a good idea. The only possible person waiting for Shindou up there is Touya Akira and Ogata's spent a lot of time in study sessions watching the boy's increasingly desperate attempts to trounce him and increasingly infuriated reactions at failing to do so these past two weeks. Ogata can't think of one possible way to interpret this as the smart thing to do, but he can't help but smile back at the look on Shindou's face, open and honest and accepting.

"I," Shindou hesitates before goes on, "I learned a long time ago that life's too short to waste it

There's something sad in his voice that Ogata hasn't heard before, but he doesn't have time to analyze it before Shindou adds, "So let's just say I'm no good at pining." He grins. "Besides, you owe me a game."

Ogata's parking his car in the underground lot by the time he remembers what actually started the whole thing.

"Ogata-sensei," Shindou had said after their game that day, eyes still flashing and defiant from his resignation, "gimme a rematch," and his eyes had glimmered.

Ogata grins, striding toward the elevator. He's game.


	3. Set

The last time Ogata turned down a lithe, attractive body begging for a fuck was never, but standing in his doorway looking at a soaking wet Touya Akira, all he can say is, "You puked on me."

The already-furious blush on Touya's cheeks deepens and he says, "What--no!"

Ogata narrows his eyes. "Yes, you did. When you were three months old and Touya-Meijin made me hold you."

Ogata does not elaborate and tell Akira that it was because Touya Koyo has always been a little uncertain as to Ogata's human credentials. The effort was, in theory, touching and all, but Touya Koyo's always been a little cracked and making Ogata hold his new bundle of projectile vomit didn't making Ogata feel any fuzzier toward humanity.

"That's not--that's not the point," Akira argues, puffy and dripping and miserable. For somebody so is ordinarily so mature, Ogata finds that the humming, blinking bulb in his hallway throws Akira into shocking relief: every day of his eighteen years and four months seeming shorter by the moment. Ogata always knew that Akira was a child, yes, intellectually, but he's never treated him like one and he suddenly wonders if perhaps he should have if Akira feels that he's old enough to be propositioning Ogata (badly) in Ogata's doorway.

Ogata supposes he should let Akira down gently. He seems a little high-strung. "I'm flattered," he says soothingly, "really."

I couldn't possibly, a voice goes naughtily on in his mind, I've had all the young, virile cock I can handle today. And actually, it's still--hopefully--sleeping the sleep of the deadest dead in my bed right now.

Akira's eyes narrow in a way that only enhances the drowned rat chic he is sporting, and does something that makes the hideous purple shirt he is wearing stretch out across his thin shoulders, his narrow chest in a thoroughly delightful way. Ogata sighs and accepts the fact that he is a terrible, terrible whore.

"You're sleeping with Shindou, aren't you?" Akira argues, in a way that is depressingly reminiscent of the schoolyard arguments he's seen Shindou and Touya engage in at the Go salon.

"Yes, but I'm not actually a public service," Ogata can't help snapping, frowning. "It's not written into your rights as a citizen of the great nation of Japan or anything."

"You could have fooled me," Akira mutters under his breath.

Again, Ogata finds himself torn between pride and annoyance, an increasingly frequent occurrence that he links directly to Shindou and his insatiable teenaged sex drive, the bastard. "Yes, well," Ogata compromises. "Now that we've established that, I think the best thing for you to do is go--"

"Touya?"

Several minutes later, Ogata is carrying one can of beer, one can of Oolong tea (which he only started purchasing since Shindou started showing up at his apartment wearing no underwear), and one glass of water into the living room. He pauses in the doorway long enough to observe Shindou sitting on the couch, knees together, wearing what appears to be nothing but the dark blue shirt he'd ripped off of Ogata's body several hours earlier that evening. It if fetching against the golden flush of his skin in the semi-dark of the room, and given the way that Touya's eyes are nearly bulging out of his skull in naked desire, Touya Akira is not immune.

This would be funny if Ogata wasn't going to be struck by lightning for it the next time he steps out of his apartment.

Ogata figures that Touya creaming his pants is imminent if he doesn't interrupt this Very Special Moment between the two brightest rising stars of Go, so he clears his throat and offers up the drinks. The way that Touya scowls when Ogata hands off a can of Oolong to Shindou makes Ogata worry that his skin is about to peel off from sheer hatred.

"This is awkward," he says finally, out of sheer masochism, sitting down next to Shindou on the couch.

Touya, from his white-knuckled perch in Ogata's computer chair across the coffee table scowls harder.

Shindou scowls back. "It wouldn't be if somebody hadn't decided to just burst in without an invitation," he says meaningfully.

There's a flash of pain on Touya's face, and Ogata knows that Shindou's words were for that express purpose, but it still makes him wince, to know that the boy who laughs at all of Ogata's underhanded jokes and likes to trace nineteen by nineteen Go boards into Ogata's stomach with his tongue is capable of being so mean. Shindou and Touya bring out the absolute best and worst in one another, and Ogata is starting to wish he wasn't having truly revolting amounts of intercourse with one half of their volatile chemical equation.

"You're having sex with Ogata-sensei!" Touya blurts out, furious again. "I can't believe you!"

The insult hasn't yet settled in before Shindou yells back, "Yeah, so what? It's not like he's deformed or anything! And unlike some people he's not so scared of--"

"I'm not scared of anything!" Touya roars back.

Ogata hopes against hope that nobody in his building ever realizes that this whole argument is about anal sex. He really doesn't think he could live here anymore.

"You're scared of everything, Touya!" Shindou says back, furious but lower, voice shaking, and his hands are fisted. He looks away when Touya opens his mouth to protest, and bites out, "Look--whatever you're here to do...or say, just do it or say it and get out."

Ogata actually chokes on his beer. Akira's face gets so hot that Ogata swears he can see steam rising from his head.

"Bad choice of words, Shindou-kun," Ogata says gently, coughing lightly, and sets the beer can down, adding, "As I was saying, Ak--"

"Oh my God," Shindou says suddenly, eyes huge and accusing, staring straight at Touya's humiliated expression.

"What?" Touya demands, miserable but still pissed.

"Oh my God," Shindou emphasizes, horrified. "You freak! You total freak, you were going to sleep with him, weren't you?"

Under normal conditions, Ogata would remind them that he was, actually, in the room, but supposed that whole thing about discretion and valor and not being vilified by his neighbors for molesting young boys outweighed his pride.

Touya stares at his lap hatefully.

"You--I--I can't believe you!" Shindou shouts, jumping to his feet, shirt flipping up in the back to give Ogata a fantastic view of the smooth curve where his thigh melted into his ass--where Ogata had applied himself enthusiastically to leaving a very large hickey earlier that evening. Ogata regarded it fondly from his lounging position on the couch.

"Oh my God, you have got to be the most fucked up person I have ever met, Touya! Is this--what is this, some kind of competitive thing?"

Shindou is angry, that much is apparent, but in between touching one another's penises Ogata has, surprisingly spent some time talking to Shindou (at least on their way to bed), and knows enough now to know that the flicker in Shindou's eyes is as much disappointment and sadness as it is fury. Touya's head suddenly shoots up, and the boy says unsteadily, "What, you're the only one who's allowed to--try new things?"

Shindou's face darkens. "Don't be stupid, Touya. You're not gay, remember."

It's not a question.

Ogata leans back in his seat, properly braced to duck for cover when the claws come completely unsheathed.

"Maybe I am," Touya says defiantly, and Ogata snorts before he realizes that this is probably not the moment to be making that particular joke.

Neither Shindou nor Touya--what with staring at each other with all the constipated homoerotic tension of an E. M. Forrester novel--notice.

"No, you're not," Shindou says heavily. "Stop it, Touya." He'd be a lot more intimidating if he weren't mostly-naked with his hair sticking up in every direction, looking very well-fucked. Which, Ogata noted with proud distraction, he was.

"Don't tell me what to do, Shindou," Touya snaps, and stands up, leaning in with narrowed eyes to get right into Shindou's face as he says it.

"Well I'm allowed to when you're being completely and totally insane!" Shindou argues, fisting his hands again. Something in Touya's eyes snap, and Ogata hopes that there's no permanent damage done--he already lost his security deposit that time Ashiwara found out about the internet and scarfing in the same day and broke the ceiling fan in the bedroom. "I mean, what the hell, Tou--"

The aesthetics of this just can't be beat, Ogata reflects with doomed cheerfulness as Touya jerks Shindou forward and kisses him in the same messy, desperate way Ogata remembers from Shindou's own mouth, hot and slick, bruising on his lips.

When the kiss breaks, Touya says, "Oh--God."

Shindou blinks three times, glazed, and says, "You're terrible at that."

Ogata looks for a way to leave the room discreetly.

Then, Shindou says, something hurt and naked and all rubbed raw in his voice, "I don't know what you're trying to prove, Touya." And much softer, he adds, "I figured out how not to be miserable, okay? Let me have that."

It freezes Ogata where he's standing next to the couch, shocks him so much he doesn't do anything but let Shindou grab the tail of his shirt with one hand, holding it like a tearful child, head lowered to Touya Akira, who is watching this with the detached horror of somebody who is seeing his loved ones in a slow-motion train wreck.

Finally, Ogata, bearing the burden of being the oldest person in the room and the only one who's actually had experience with this sort of experience before (but only three times, and one of those times was when he was an Insei, so he figured it didn't really count), sighs and says quietly, "Maybe you should go home, Akira-kun."

Touya's still staring, with huge eyes, watery and miserable at Shindou, who is still looking at the floor, hand white-knuckled, tugging at Ogata's shirt.

"What, so that's it?" Touya says, flabbergasted. "That's it?"

"I'm going back to sleep," Shindou says suddenly, high-pitched, lighting it out of the room. Ogata hears the slam of his bedroom door and winces. By the time he turns back to Touya, the boy's misery has frozen on his face, granite impressions of shock.

Ogata wants to say, "What were you expecting tonight? I'm not that easy," or "I don't know what Ashiwara told you but..." or "Shindou's different" but it seems like a bad idea to say anything but, "You're not being fair, Akira-kun."

Touya makes a choked noise and says, "I apologize for the interruption," and bursts out of the apartment, barely getting his shoes on in the doorway before throwing open the door and bolting down the hallway. Ogata hears his feet clatter all the way down the stairs, hears the ambient noise of the city as he walks to the door to shut it, hears the gurgle of the fish tank as he walks to his bedroom and opens the door.

Shindou's in the bed, cocooned in the sheets, the blue shirt on the floor near the door. Ogata sighs and hangs it up, shrugging out of his own shirt and laying down on the right side of the bed, he's opening his mouth to say something when Shindou hits him with the sexual equivalent of a sucker punch, and before he can clearly form his first syllable Shindou's got his mouth on Ogata's cock.

The first time Shindou decided give him a blowjob, it was more bullheaded determination and fierce enthusiasm that got Ogata off than Shindou's occasional strangled noises--but he's a good teacher, and--thank God--under his steady tutelage, Shindou is now sucking his brain out through his cock.

Ogata hisses through his teeth and knots his hands in Shindou's hair, feeling Shindou's palms on his hips, holding him down. Shindou's mouth is hot, exquisite, obscenely wet; Ogata frequently calls Shindou a mouthy little upstart and he means that in the most appreciative way ever.

Shindou's free hand, the one not wrapped at the base of Ogata's cock squeezing just right, finds that spot right behind Ogata's balls and strokes it until Ogata grunts, jerks, and comes, feels Shindou's throat constrict around him, swallowing, easing him through the aftershocks until Ogata is boneless on the bed.

By the time his rational thinking aligns again he sees Shindou's shoulder jerking, his face pressed into Ogata's hip, his hand working between his legs and Ogata actually shouts "Stop!" and can't tell if he's more surprised that he ordered it or that Shindou actually did.

"Scoot up," Ogata says raggedly, and he takes off his glasses, setting them on the night table as Shindou seems to consider the order.

"Scoot up," Ogata says again, more firmly, tugging insistently on Shindou's arms until the boy is looking confused and flushed, and Ogata feels the wet slide of Shindou's cockhead against his inner thigh, his belly, his chest, until Shindou's practically sitting on Ogata's face--right where Ogata wants him.

Shindou's bright red, from what Ogata's admittedly blurry eyes can see, and it's unbearably endearing. Ogata closes his palms on Shindou's ass cheeks and pulls him forward, until the tip of Shindou's cock is touching his mouth and breaths on it gently, hearing Shindou groan over him, hands scrabbling on the sheets.

"Grab the headboard," Ogata orders, and this time--whether it's because the blowjob seems imminent or Ogata's breathing on his cock--Shindou snaps to comply.

Shindou's face is red and his mouth is open and shiny and there is a spot of white on the corner of his mouth. He's staring down at Ogata with a drugged expression and his chest is heaving, hands on the headboard, all lithe muscles and unmarked skin, and he looks like an irresistible courtesan from Ogata's angle, so Ogata smiles and pushes Shindou forward that last few inches and sucks the head of Shindou's cock into his mouth.

There's something truly filthy and incredibly arousing about the way that Shindou fucks his mouth, dragging his tight, round ass back and forth on Ogata's chest, knees tight around his ribs. The way that he's clutching the headboard and making high-pitched whimpers every time the head of his cock his the back of Ogata's throat makes him ambitious, so one of Ogata's thick, blunt fingers circles Shindou's entrance teasingly, thumb smoothing over it in time to Shindou's thrusts.

Ogata presses Shindou's cock to the roof of his mouth with his tongue the same time his finger slips inside and Shindou comes with a choked gasp, body arching backward like a crescent moon, arms fully extended, filling Ogata's mouth and shooting down his throat and fucking Ogata's mouth with a recklessness desperation that Ogata cannot help but feel smug over.

And when Shindou's body slowly loosens, Ogata licks Shindou clean and helps him slide over and off of him, covers them both with the light, summer sheet, and listens to the rain outside, still loud against the roof.

Shindou's wide-eyed with sweat beading on his face and he lies on his side to stare straight into Ogata's eyes, and they're close enough that everything is crystal clear, in high definition, and Ogata sees the beginnings of something that seeds a humbling fear inside his stomach blossom in Shindou Hikaru's expression.

"Don't say it," Ogata warns him, low, voice raspy, and he takes Shindou's hand in his own beneath the covers tight so that it doesn't break Shindou's heart.

That was never the point. This was never a game. And he meant it when he didn't say "Shindou is different" to Touya--Shindou is different, it's the how which will ruin them both.

Shindou squeezes Ogata's fingers with his own, eyes huge. "I've always said--I never had to lie about you," Shindou says quietly. "Don't know if I can unlearn now."

"Try," Ogata instructs.

"You're not ashamed of me, are you?" Shindou asks, and there's something caramel and purring in his voice that smoothes it's hands all down Ogata's skin, until he's nearly shivering, though it's much too soon for another round. "I didn't think so."

"This is a terrible idea," Ogata warns, sliding his hands to the small of Shindou's back, because it's his fourteenth favorite curve on Shindou's body.

"Probably, yeah," Shindou agrees, and kisses Ogata's collarbone sleepily, curving against Ogata's side.

"You'll regret this--any minute now," Ogata adds.

"Relax," Shindou breathes against his skin. "I'm not playing for keeps."

It makes the knot in Ogata's chest unwind, and he feels himself relaxing into the mattress, if there's a prick of something in his stomach he ignores it because Shindou's pressing his face into the curve of Ogata's neck, and throwing one leg over Ogata's hip and it's good--surprisingly good.

He's almost asleep, lulled into false relaxation when Shindou murmurs, "Yet."


	4. Match

The first time Ogata tries to end it, he finds Shindou halfway started without him, a mess of sweaty limbs in Ogata's bed. His face is flushed and his upper lip is sweating and his eyelids are heavy. He's got one hand between his legs, fingers slick and buried between the globes of his ass, the other squeezing the base of his cock.

Ogata figures it's really, really impolite to break up with somebody under these circumstances, and so he unzips his pants and fucks Shindou hard enough make him shout and says, "Fuck, fuck, take it," and comes so hard he throws out his back and almost blacks out.

Later that week, when Shindou spends most of his time amusing himself over Ogata's Shindou-induced back injury, Ogata tries to break up with him for real. This is hard to do when one is in the undignified position of being prostrate on one's bed, incapable of moving or sitting up.

Shindou only says, "God, you overreact so much."

Ogata says, "I mean it."

Shindou rolls his eyes. "Whatever." He brightens. "Hey, we can use this opportunity to help you quit smoking!"

Fucking fuck fuck, Ogata thinks, this is my comeuppance for fucking the young.

*

The second time Ogata tries to break with Shindou, he makes sure that they're in a public place, only he's a moron and he's forgotten that the only public places they're ever together are the Touya Go Salon and the Go Institute. Touya Akira already spends most of his time simmering in fury with a side of homoerotic frustration.

As for the Go Institute, the very, very last thing that Ogata wants is that old fucker Kuwabara verifying his claim that Ogata's totally tapped that.

So what starts out as an effort to say, "This isn't working," turns into "This…is good," when Kuwabara walks past the doorway, blithe and irritating and ruining everything, throwing Ogata off of his rhythm.

"Yeah?" Shindou says, surprised, they're in one of the practice rooms, discussing Shindou's last game.

His eyes are really very pretty. Ogata almost kicks himself for thinking it.

"Yes, sure," Ogata bites out, annoyed with himself, digging through his pockets for the nicotine gum Shindou had bought him after he'd flushed all of Ogata's very expensive cigarettes.

When he looks back up, Shindou's eyes are even prettier, starry.

"We could play at your place," Shindou supplies, voice excited. "I didn't know you wanted to."

Go has always been about power and strategy and skill for Ogata, but now it is also about Shindou's fingers molesting his God damn fan in X-rated ways until Ogata says, "This isn't working," shoving the Go board out of his way, and attacking Shindou on his living room floor.

Several hours later, rubbing lotion into their rug burn, Ogata reflects that he's just total shit at this break-up thing.

*

For a few unsuccessful weeks, Ogata tries to make Shindou break up with him only to realize that Touya Akira had a point when he shouted at the top of his lungs that Shindou was the world's single densest person, that he never noticed anything.

Ogata tries fooling around, and he gets so far as getting friendly with his hands before he looses interest and gets distracted by a black and white poster on the wall that looks sort of like a kifu. He attempts brazen alcoholism, which is sometimes a turn off, but finds that Shindou likes having sex with Ogata, sloppy-drunk or not. Ogata should not find this thought endearing, but he does. Ogata attempts to develop some really deplorable personal habits, but gives up trying to force himself to throw his clothes on the floor when he remembers that Shindou is nineteen--that his kind is so messy, even science cannot conquer it.

*

It's some time after that Shindou disappears to Nigata for a tournament and Ogata realizes a full day after that he's supposed to be in attendance as well, so when he arrives at the hotel bar, tired, exhausted from the trip, and desperately in need of alcohol, he figures he should be grateful to see Touya Akira leaning into Shindou's personal space, pressing their dewy, trembling mouths together.

After all, it's Ogata's out. He's free. No messy break-up scene, and it'll be really novel to be the one dumped for once, Ogata thinks. Or, perhaps, Shindou will be too embarrassed to formally break up with Ogata and just send a packet of guilt money, which would be fine because Ogata was eyeing a new fishtank he saw in the Sharper Image catalogue a few days ago with great interest on the train.

But before any of this can happen, Ogata realizes that he's stormed over to the bar and jerked Shindou away by the back of his collar, and that when he meets the boy's eyes, Shindou is drunk and swaying but suddenly overjoyed, falls forward into Ogata's arms and says, "Hey!" and "You're here!" and "Touya said he was gonna tell me a secret--you wanna hear the secret?"

Ogata looks over Shindou's face, his starry eyes, his red cheeks and his dark hair. Touya looks hollow and tired and thinner than Ogata remembers--but more than that he looks guilty, and Ogata tightens his hand on Shindou's shirt. He pulls Shindou close to his chest, because maybe that's where the boy has been all along, since that first awkward fuck in the car and all the ones following--and all the ones yet to come.

Ogata thinks that maybe he's been looking at this all wrong.

"We're leaving," Ogata tells Touya, and when he nods jerkily, Ogata thinks he can almost feel sorry for him, to lose something so dear.

"Good night," Touya says, and in it Ogata hears "be good to him" and "let him keep his secrets" and "let him know all of yours."

Ogata has his own hotel room, partly due to seniority and partly because he had explained to the event planners he intended on having raunchy sex parties, and it would be unfortunate if his roommate could only watch and not participate. So when he pulls Shindou into his room it is dark and cool and the city glimmers just outside the window.

And when he lays Shindou down on the futon, gathers the blankets around him and watches the boy sleep, Ogata has to sit back and stare at the lines of Shindou's face, silvered by moonlight and think that if there are secrets still that lie between them, he loves them for how they have shaped Shindou and for how they have guided his beautiful, surprising Go.

*

Shindou wakes up with the worst hangover ever and makes feeble, sheep-noises, crying and bleating, pawing uselessly at the sheets and saying things like, "Take care of me!" and "You're terrible!" and "Oh my God, I'm dying," even as Ogata mops at his forehead with cool, damp cloths and fakes sympathy and everything.

"God, I don't remember anything after the tequila," Shindou moans.

Ogata makes a note to make sure Touya is picking up the tab. There's some sort of unspoken rule that attempted adulterers are obligated to pay for the drinks with which they ply their teetolling victims.

"You had sex with most of the people in the bar," Ogata tells him seriously. "If you're sore, it's only because you're a slut."

Shindou snorts and rolls over onto his side, covering his face with his arm. "I always knew I'd catch something from you."

Ogata allows Shindou to steal his sunglasses on the Shinkansai back to Tokyo later that day, and they're unlucky enough to be stuck in the same compartment as several Go enthusiasts, who come over to get Ogata's signature and find themselves gushing for two. Shindou half-smiles, and half-winces through all of it, though since all of his Go Weekly photographs are equally miserable, nobody is the wiser.

Ogata stares at Shindou's miserable, hung-over expression and realizes that he knows all of Shindou's prescriptions and how he likes his tea, what he's allergic to and what he refuses to admit to and how Shindou dreams sometimes, with such vivid sadness that he wets Ogata's pillow and Ogata doesn't even complain. If these are signs, Ogata thinks, then maybe they are signs that Shindou's black stones are encircling his own white pieces, that in the finite game of life he's reached an impasse, and to fight it any longer would be undignified, useless--messy.

Ogata thinks about resignation, and how it can have great dignity--

"I'm never drinking again," Shindou mourns, and sips hatefully at his barley tea.

"You've said that--"

"Shut up," Shindou snaps.

\--and how sometimes, it's just inevitable, he thinks, wryly amused, and--taking Shindou's hand terribly indiscreetly into his own--he concedes the match.


End file.
